With rhetoric like “Representing people, not corporations,” and “Opposing developer giveaways,” Racine is full throttle for Silverman while ignoring his own role in promoting corporate developers and giving away significant air-rights entitlements.

On a near weekly basis, Racine’s zoning attorneys provide the now infamous DC Zoning Commission with legal cover to approve major luxury projects citywide, resulting in land use approvals that greatly benefit the bottom-line of the Mayor’s corporate-developer friends while completely ignoring the impacts on existing DC communities and families.

For example, Racine and his zoning lawyers took no issue with the Zoning Commission rubber-stamping hundreds of new luxury hotel rooms & 6,000 new homes across 20 new projects at the blinging new Union Market, with the Office of Planning only brokering 10-units qualifying as “affordable” family-sized (3+ bedrooms) homes. This type of valuable air-rights giveaway with little in return for existing DC residents holds similarly true for the deals at the Southwest Waterfront and Navy Yard developments, among others.

Racine’s band of top-rate OAG attorneys at the DC Zoning Commission include: Alan Bergstein, Esther Bushman, Hillary Lovick, & Jacob Ritting. The veteran Alan Bergstein, Esquire, has been plying his trade for more than two decades in DC, directly playing a role in the massive displacement of black residents throughout the city without blinking an eye.

“Racine’s attorneys make it difficult for everyday people and impacted communities to engage in the zoning process and to actually win any permanent equity and compensation out of these disruptive and impactful luxury land deals,” said Ilaf Ayyash who was pushed out of the longtime artists incubator at 411 New York Avenue, NE for a luxury hotel project. “We had to fight just to be heard, and now the OAG is staking claim to the Zoning Commission’s indefensible positions in Court. It’s such hypocrisy that Mr. Racine decries corporations and land giveaways when that is who his zoning lawyers excel at benefiting.”

Union Market Neighbors will be clashing with Racine’s lawyers again on November 13, 2018, at the highest Court in the District, the DC Court of Appeals, in seeking remedy from impacts due to another massive luxury project at 4th and Florida Avenue, NE. For more info >> http://www.dc4reality.org/unionmarketneighbors

JUST BEFORE THE 2018 LEGISLATIVE SUMMER BREAK — THE DC CITY COUNCIL IS HOLDING ROUNDTABLES, HEARINGS, AND VOTES THAT DEMONSTRATE, OR NOT, HOW MUCH THE CITY CARES FOR CULTURE, FAMILIES, AND HISTORY OF THE DISTRICT.

Displacement of residents because of their class or race has become commonplace in every community in this city and in too many cities across this nation. This in large part is because [city planners] allow our land use decisions to be guided by marketplace principles and ‘highest and best use’ principles.

A recent Washington Post article highlights the Grenfell Tower fire, a building poorly constructed with questionable materials that was approved with little accountable municipal permitting review.

The Grenfell fire illustrated in searing fashion the perils of life in Britain’s public housing high-rises, where years of unheeded warnings, slashed costs and deregulation all added up to a tragedy unlike any Britain has seen in at least a century.

But the aftermath has shined a spotlight on a different problem with Britain’s strained-to-the-breaking-point housing system — a severe shortage of affordable options that has left people desperate for a roof over their heads.

The article captures London’s construction boom in a way that closely matches the problems in the District. DCRA is DC’s permitting office which is under much scrutiny for similar oversight and permitting failures. And DC has been experiencing an affordable housing crisis for more than a decade.

The article sheds light on DC’s major planning and permitting problems. It’s a good read, if sad for all those families hurt or killed and displaced.

On Monday, June 12, 2017, just a mere couple of weeks after the DC Zoning Commission rubberstamped the approval of a project that will destroy #BrooklandManor, the cops are acting as developer agents to harass and finish off the displacement of existing DC families and residents living in Ward 5.

Of course, Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie favors this displacement, as he goes on and on writing letters consistently supporting these projects and the wholesale removal and police harassment of black families from DC.